


wait for me, i'm ready now

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Teacher Harry, dad liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: Harry’s maybe abusing his privileges as a teacher to take Jules out of school without express permission from her dad, but she looks awful. She’s crying in the real way, not whining but proper tears, and the longer she sits around in the nurse’s office, the closer she slips to a proper fever.He doesn’t know what Liam was thinking when he dropped her off this morning. She’s clearly miserable, and in no state to be around the other kids. If Harry had been there, if he’d just let Harry stay the night, he would have insisted Jules stay home.But Liam doesn’t ever let him stay. It’s been nine months. Harry’s got a bloody key to his flat, and for some reason he can’t understand, he’s never allowed to stay.[Or Harry plays at being a step-dad, and Liam doesn't know if he's ready.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> These are two related tumblr drabbles, so I thought I'd put them together. :D

Harry’s maybe abusing his privileges as a teacher to take Jules out of school without express permission from her dad, but she looks awful. She’s crying in the real way, not whining but proper tears, and the longer she sits around in the nurse’s office, the closer she slips to a proper fever.

He doesn’t know what Liam was thinking when he dropped her off this morning. She’s clearly miserable, and in no state to be around the other kids. If Harry had been there, if he’d just let Harry stay the night, he would have insisted Jules stay home.

But Liam doesn’t ever let him stay. It’s been nine months. Harry’s got a bloody key to his flat, and for some reason he can’t understand, he’s never allowed to stay.

“How are you feeling, love?” Harry asks as he draws her up into his arms and straddles her on his hip.

She sniffles, looks generally pitiful, and it’s real because she never fakes it. Not like Harry does, who’s known to give a pout or two when he’s not getting his way. Jules is only ever earnest, just like her dad, and it’s one of the better Payne Family Traits.

“My neck hurts,” she mumbles.

“Your throat?” Harry points at his own neck. “That’s what underneath your neck. Your throat.”

She nods, her lip wobbles. Harry’s gotta get her home, get her soup, get her rested.

“He answering?” he asks Niall, for maybe the sixth time.

“No,” Niall answers, for maybe the sixth time.

“I’m gonna get her home, then. Tell Susan, would you?”

Niall gives him a look, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s the worst kept secret in their tiny school, not that it’s really that bad. It’s not like Harry is _Jules_ ’ assistant teacher. And Louis’ll be fine with handling the class on his own the rest of the day and Susan will dock Harry’s pay and it’s fine. He’s got his girl to think of.

“Will you say, bye Nurse Niall?”

“Bye, Nurse Niall,” she parrots. There’s not as much heart in it as there would be if she were in top form.

“Bye, petal. Feel better.” Niall opens the door for the two of them and Harry turns down the hallway that’ll lead them out.

“I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly, my love, but I’ll take care of you, yeah?” He presses a kiss to her temple. “Why do we call you Jules?”

“‘Cause m’precious.”

“That’s right.” God forbid Gems ever hears that, because she’ll insist she’s precious too and Harry’ll never hear the end of it.

She tucks her face into Harry’s neck and stays there the whole walk home.

Jules doesn’t fuss once, not through her tomato soup, not through the bit of the gross medicine, not through the quick bath to wash the sweat off her, not even when the front door slams just as Harry’s got her into bed. She’s used to Harry doing the goodnight routine – even if it is the middle of the day – when Harry takes care of her on the nights Liam works late.

“Jules? Babe?” Liam’s voice echoes through the flat.

Harry pads to the door, says gently once he hears Liam’s footsteps nearing. “We’re in here.”

Liam pushes through without a word of hello or a kiss, but Harry gets it. His girl’s sick, he’s got to see to her first.

Harry hovers at the door, feeling like he’s not part of this family. It’s a cold feeling, and he tries his best to push it away. She knows, in whatever way little ones car try to understand, that Harry’s something more.

He hears his name whispered a few times between the two of them, as Liam gently strokes her hair. She falls asleep eventually, in what sounds like the middle of the sentence, and even then, Liam stays knelt by her side.

“Liam,” Harry whispers when it’s been long enough, when it looks like he’s never going to leave. Only then does Liam look at him. He doesn’t look happy.

Harry closes the door gently once Liam’s through it, slides a hand on Liam’s chest and moves in for a kiss.

“I was at the school and she wasn’t there,” Liam says, stopping Harry in his tracks.

“I took her home,” Harry says gently, even though it’s obvious. They’re at home. It’s home, more of a home than Harry’s flat feels at this point. Because it’s got the three of them. “I left you a message.”

“I didn’t – I didn’t listen to it, I just heard the school message.”

Harry moves his hand to his neck, rubs a soothing thumb. He understands why Liam was scared, then, if he didn’t know. “It’s fine, babe. It’s all okay.”

“She’s sick,” Liam says dumbly. He looks like he’s struggling to understand something. “When she’s sick I’m supposed to come get her.”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“I’m supposed to come get her,” Liam repeats firmly.

Harry blinks at him. “She’s fine, Liam, I just thought I’d help, y’know, do the dad stuff for a bit.”

“You – like, you can’t do that.” Liam steps away, pacing, and Harry’s hand slips off him and falls with an ugly slap to his side.

“I do it all the time.” Harry tries to keep the belligerent tone out of his voice. The cold creeps back in with a vengeance, and Harry hates it.  “I’m with her all the time. Why can’t I?”

“Because you’re not her real dad,” Liam snaps, and it cuts sharp across Harry, threatening to let him bleed out right then and there. His face shifts, from anger into something approaching apologetic, but Harry can’t. That’s what Liam thinks of him. He wouldn’t have said it otherwise.

“I – you’re right.” Harry starts for the door.

“Harry – ”

“It’s fine,” Harry says, and it feels as nasty in his mouth as the cold medicine does. “I’ll just. Get out of your hair. Hope she feels better.”

Harry doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, what he was ever thinking, dating a single dad to begin with, because it’s a big responsibility. Staying with Liam after all this time, even when it was clear that they were never going to be everything Harry wanted them to be.

He feels stupid walking back to the school, he’ll have maybe an hour left once he gets there, but he doesn’t want to go back to his flat. He doesn’t want to go home, it’s home, really, and he’s got to go back to thinking of it that way. Liam’s was just a place he stayed.

He doesn’t see Jules or Liam the whole weekend. It eats away at him, you’re not her real dad, and he knows it shouldn’t, because he knows he _isn’t_ , but he wishes he’d never heard the words said.

Even if he’s not her dad, even if he’s not Liam’s… husband or whatever else. Harry was something – is something. They’re precious to him, they’re everything. And he doesn’t know what to do.

Jules is at school on Monday, looking 110% as she does on her best days, and she drags Liam by the hand right up to Harry’s classroom door, where he’s perched to greet his kids as they come in.

It reminds him of the morning they’d met, when Jules had done this exact thing. She’d pulled Liam along because she wanted him to meet the teacher who said he had a pet frog named Winston, which was patently untrue, but the thing is, he was substituting in her class the day before and the kids were picking on her for liking frogs, and he couldn’t very well let that stand.

Liam’s smiling at him as sheepishly today as he was a year ago.

Harry crouches down to greet her. “Are you feeling better, love?”

She nods furiously. “Much better.”

Liam interjects, “She says you were better at the goodnight routine than I am.”

“C’mon now, Jules,” Harry says with an exaggerated scoff. “Nobody’s better at the goodnight routine than your dad.”

“What do you say?” Liam prompts.

“Thank you, Harry.” She holds out a card. “I made you this. I mean, daddy made you this ‘cause he says I can’t write, but I made you this.”

The card is red and it has a very carefully and very awfully drawn picture of a sick girl in bed with a thermometer in her mouth. It looks like Liam’s drawn the picture and Jules has colored it in, from the wild crayon marks all around it. Harry’s speechless, can’t bring himself to open it.

“What do you say?” Liam prompts again.

“Thank you, Jules.” He looks up. “Thank you, Liam.”

Liam nods, something like relief coloring his features. Harry’s not sure if they’ve fixed it yet, is the thing. He wants it to be something they talk about, not just something they press on with and never think about. Something Harry ignores because he’s just happy to have them.

“Will you walk us to our classroom?” Jules asks.

Harry nods. Their classroom is literally across the hall, some six feet, away, but it still feels like something. Jules grabs him around the legs, holding tight in a quick hug, before she disappears off into the room.

“Well, this is wildly manipulative,” Harry says blandly.

Liam peeks over at him. “But is it working?”

“No,” Harry lies.

Liam smiles at him, nods off down the corridor, and they walk until they’re as close to alone as they’re going to get with parents and kids running around trying to get situated in the morning.

Harry opens his card then, reads the message. _Thank you, Harry, we love you!_ It’s signed Jules and Liam with about twenty-seven x’s and o’s. And there’s a postscript, small and in the corner, that says, _sorry I was a twat._

“Liam,” Harry scolds when he reads it.

“What? She can’t really read yet. She doesn’t know what it says.” He clears his throat. “And I am sorry. I was being a twat. I shouldn’t have said – what I said.”

He knows Liam isn’t wrong, necessarily. “I know I’m not her dad.”

“I was scared.”

“I understand, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken her.” That’s got to be one of the most helpless feelings in the world, a parent not knowing where their kid is. Harry knows that. He should have kept calling until he had Liam on the phone, until he was sure Liam knew Jules was okay.

“No, I was scared,” Liam repeats. “To share her. It’s ridiculous, I share her all the time. Sometimes there are weeks where you spend more time with her than I do, and I know that. It’s just.”

Liam cuts himself off, taking a big breath. Harry can’t help but reach out to him, get a hand on his chest like he loves to do. It doesn’t feel wrong, he won’t let it feel wrong. And then Liam covers Harry’s hand with his own, and it isn’t wrong.

“I’ve been so focused on her having just the one parent, like, maybe letting her have two was like admitting defeat.”

“It’s not defeat,” Harry murmurs. “It’s okay if you need help.”

“I know it is.”

“It’s okay if I’m your family.”

Liam squeezes his hand. “I know you are.”

It nearly breaks Harry in two, gets him crying in the middle of his school, to hear that, to know that. He is something to them, and that something is family.

“You’re my family,” Harry says, almost wetly. “I love you both so much.”

“I love you. I do. So does Jules, I know she does, she’s bloody obsessed with you.” He gives Harry a grin, one of the ones that squints his eyes. “It runs in the family.”

“Thank god for that,” Harry breathes, sliding his hands around Liam’s back to pull him into a hug. The cold is gone, it’s replaced by an impossible warmth, an all-consuming warmth.

“I’m going to put your name on the list,” Liam says. “On her pick up list. In case she needs to go home again. I’m gonna put you on every pick up list I can find.”

Harry kisses him. Briefly, chastely, because they’re in the hallway of a school, but it’s still enough. It’s everything.

\--

_several months later_

 

Liam is already awake by the time Harry finally peeks his eyes open to the morning light. Liam’s lying flat on his back, but he can’t sleep on his back, he finds it uncomfortable. So he must be uncomfortable. Harry’s not having any of that.

He rolls over and flops half of his body onto Liam’s. “Good morning.”

“Hey.” His voice is low and he doesn’t tip his eyes immediately to meet Harry’s.

Harry presses a kiss to Liam’s chest before moving his hand there to trace his fingers lightly up and down his chest hair. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “That’s the wrong answer. You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“I just - okay, please don’t get mad at me.”

Harry scowls up at him. “Don’t do things that make me mad at you.”

“I haven’t – told her. About us.”

Harry’s hand stops. “Liam.”

“It’s not – ” Liam starts, shifting his hand so it presses firmly on Harry’s back, “it’s not for that reason, it’s not that I’m ashamed of you, god, no, like you’ve met my parents, and everything. It’s just – she doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t get to know the good things about me. That was the rule. She just gets Jules.”

Harry blinks. “Well, I suppose she’ll be in for a surprise.”

“There’s just no way that comes up in natural conversation when you’re on Skype with your daughter, you know? Jules learned to write her name, also I’m dating a bloke named Harry.”

“I know, love,” Harry says soothingly. There’s no need for Liam to get all worked up, because if he gets worked up, Jules gets worked up, and then Harry’s got double duty trying to wrangle them both with no help.

“She’s just never here.”

“She’s in France.”

“It’s the bloody English Channel, not the Atlantic. You can literally drive a car.”

“Babe.”

“She’s got two, y’know, dads, like, she could use a mum sometimes. Teach her girl things.”

Harry grins into his chest. It doesn’t get old, the whole two dads thing.  “We can teach her girl things.”

Liam sighs. “Will you please just let me be unreasonable, for like a few minutes?”

“Yes, sorry. Proceed.”

Liam sighs again and if he’s being unreasonable, he’s being quiet about it. Then he abruptly rolls them over so he can start pressing furious kisses on Harry’s lips.

“Love – mmnmm – we have to – get dressed,” Harry tries, but not very hard. It is quite nice, and he likes to let Liam think he’s winning for a bit before Harry eventually gets his way.

Liam looks down at him, serious, earnest. “I just love you.”

That’s not going to work, that kind of sweet talk. Not this time.

“Good.” Harry kisses him. “Now get off me, you big oaf. We have to do the good morning routine.”

Liam groans and buries his head in Harry’s neck. “Do we have to?”

“Yes,” Harry says with a final kiss to his temple. Then he shoves Liam right off, rolls out of bed before Liam can do anything about it, and slips on a shirt and some joggers. “Teeth brushed by the time I get back. Love you!”

He cracks open Jules’ room, finds her asleep, clutching at her sheets. He hates to wake her, but – “Good morning, good morning, it’s time for the good morning routine!” he sings.

Jules groans and presses her face into her pillow. “We have to?”

Harry grins.

Neither of them are ready by the time the doorbell goes, so Harry leaves Liam to do the braiding (bad idea) so he can answer.

He’s seen pictures of Marion before, but none of them do justice to how she looks in person. Commanding but serene, breathtaking. Harry has to blink a few times before he says, “Hi, Marion, I’m Harry.”

She tilts her head. “Are you the nanny?”

“I – no. Not the nanny.”

She hums. They stand there for a few moments before she says, “May I come in?”

“Of course! Sorry, yes, let me get your bags.” He carries them in behind her, but doesn’t go much further when she stops, standing hesitantly at the edge of the sitting room.

“Maman, maman!” Jules shouts as she thumps through the flat. She collides with Marion’s legs and clutches them tight.

“Julianne, ma cherie,” she says, then babbles away at Jules in French that makes Harry feel on the outside. He shuffles back to let them have their moment, nearly stepping on Liam as he comes up behind them.

“Marion,” Liam says, leaning over to kiss both her cheeks.

Jules grabs her mum by the hand and drags her off toward her room. “Maman, I have a dinosaur and his name is Fred.”

Harry can hear Marion’s voice trail off, “A real dinosaur? Oh my.”

Liam takes Harry by the hand and drags him off to the kitchen. “Is she okay, how’s it going, is my face red? It feels really red.”

Harry smooths a hand through Liam’s hair. “She’s fine, we’re fine, your face is red but gorgeous.”

“Yeah?” Liam bites at his lip.

“Yeah.” Harry boxes him in against the counter and presses in. Anything to get him smiling, anything to get him out of his head. “Did you know French is very sexy?”

Liam shakes his head. “I never understood a word of it.”

Harry leans over to whisper in his ear, “Bonjour. Fromage.”

Liam snorts a laugh. “Shh.”

“Ooooh. Je suis allé au cinéma avec mes copains et ma famille.”

Liam shushes him with a kiss and then another.

“Ew,” says a small voice that can only belong to Jules. They turn in sync and find her and Marion standing by the fridge. Jules’ face is scrunched like it normally is, because she’s at this phase where kissing is gross, and Marion has an eyebrow quirked but is otherwise impossible to read.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Liam blurts. “Harry is my boyfriend and we’ve been dating for a year and it’s very serious and I love him and Jules loves him and he loves us and we all love each other. This is Harry.”

She looks between the two of them. “This is fine. We would like some milk.”

“Help yourself,” Harry says, worms his way out of Liam’s arms to grab them a few glasses.

The whole day is cordial. That’s the only way Harry can think to describe it – cordial. Nearly formal. Liam stops falling all over himself, but he does go stiff, treating Marion like an acquaintance he’s met the once instead of someone he’s fathered a child with.

He gets defensive easily, when Marion asks Harry the simplest questions, “Are you without a job?”

“Harry’s a teacher,” Liam cuts in.

“Assistant teacher,” Harry explains gently. “It’s the summer. So. Many days off.”

Harry tries his best to be something of a peacemaker, to smooth anything over for the sake of Jules, so she doesn’t get upset. He’s seen the worst of it, bickering parents making the kids feel useless, guilty, when they can’t keep it together. Not that he’d ever want them to lie, not that he’d ever ask them to pretend to be something they’re not.

But he’s seen his kids through some of the worst of that, and he’s not letting that happen to Jules.

They’re left alone in the kitchen as Harry does the washing up and Liam puts Jules down for a nap.

“Are you happy with him?” Marion asks, startling him. She’s going for the throat immediately.

Harry turns the water off, wipes at his hands. He has no idea where this could possibly go, and the only thing he has to give her is the truth. “Overwhelmingly happy.”

She purses her lips and nods. “Good. This is good.”

“It is good,” Harry agrees.

“Liam is.” Her hands twirl as she tries to find the best way to explain it, it looks like. “Very much. He is very big.”

“Big?”

“Big heart. Big emotions. Big life. He tries very hard,” she explains. Harry doesn’t know what to say, but she doesn’t look like she needs him to say anything. “Julianne is like him in this way.”

“She is, yeah.” They’re a pair, the two of them, too alike each other to ever exist separately. It’s why it’s so easy to love them both so fully, so quickly, so easily.

“I am very small, simple. I could not reach as big as he needed.” She looks away, almost apologetic. They’re the same, her and Liam, in an odd sort of way. He’s big and she’s small, but Harry bets they’re both absolutely terrified of disappointing each other. Of being too much and too little. Harry’s always worried about being too much, about going too far, but they just have to talk about it. They just have to level set, and everything smooths out.

“You are big for them?” she asks.

“I try to be.”

“Good.” She smiles, a soft thing. She pulls a drink from the fridge and disappears out of the kitchen, sliding past Liam quietly as she goes.

Liam looks between them. “Hey, babe, you good?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, pressing himself close, being as big as Liam needs him to be. “Overwhelmingly happy.”

**—-**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. If you need me, I'm [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com).


End file.
